The inventive concepts relate to a serial communication method, and more particularly, to a serial communication method for a layered communication architecture.
Electronic devices, such as personal computers, smart phones, or personal digital assistants (PDAs), may include a plurality of digital devices, such as processors, memories, communication controllers, and display controllers, among other devices. Such digital devices may include a connection unit (hereinafter, referred to as an “interface”) that enables signals, such as data or commands, to be exchanged with other digital devices.
With the development of semiconductor technologies, the trend has been to design digital devices with serial communication interfaces instead of parallel communication interfaces. In view of the desire to limit the number of ports of digital devices, increase the amount of transmitted and/or received data, and reduce power consumption, the demand for serial communication for high-speed data transmission and reception has gradually increased. Serial communication may have a layered communication architecture as defined in the open systems interconnection (OSI) model (ISO/IEC 7498-1), for example. Serial communication may also be switched between high-speed and low-speed modes to reduce power consumption during data communication. Apparatuses using serial communication may also be designed to enter a power saving state when no data communication is performed.